1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to construction, display, and viewing of web pages, and in particular to web page animated construction and display and zoom in and out viewing of a large web page.
2. Description of the Related Art
Browsing of web pages has become commonplace in the use of computers and the Internet or the World Wide Web. When retrieving and browsing a web page, the http address of the web page is specified. The browser retrieves the html file that corresponds to the http address. The browser retrieves and displays the web page. However, the time for retrieving, loading, or downloading a web page may be quite extensive, and the user, especially those persons new to browsing the web, may become quite bored and impatient during this time that the web page is loading, downloading, and being constructed. The images gradually appear on the computer screen as the computer processes and displays the web page information, and the user has to patiently wait for these images to be displayed.
Furthermore, many web pages are relatively large, and they extend beyond the current web page view that displays the web page on the computer screen. Thus, only a portion of the entire web page is displayed at a time in the available web page view for the user. For some users and/or new users who are browsing the web, the limited web page view, which displays only a portion of the large web page, may be misleading to them in making them think that they are viewing the entire large web page. Some of the users may not know what to do to view the rest of the web page, or they may believe that they were viewing the entire web page.
FIG. 3 is a prior art figure showing a view of a computer screen 90 with a retrieved web page 100 therein. The web page is identified with a web page title 102 and has various web objects 104 and has a scroll bar 106 for scrolling through the web page. A browser executes a typical web page drawing algorithm for constructing the web page 100 on the screen. One problem encountered by many users is that they may get bored with waiting for the web objects to appear and be fully displayed on the web page 100. Also, the viewing area of the web page 100 is limited to only being able to show a portion of the web page 100. New and even some existing users may be misled in thinking that the portion of the web page 100 shown in the viewing area is the entire web page 100.
Also, “more” bars on web pages allow a user or viewer to scroll or access additional, unseen portions of the web page that extend beyond the viewing area of the web page. U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,132 provides a prior art example of such “more” bars, and this patent is incorporated by reference herein. However, these “more” bars may not sufficiently or necessarily indicate to the user or viewer that additional, unseen portions of the web page still exist or show the relative size or general page layout compared to what is shown on the computer screen.
It would therefore be advantageous and desirable to provide a system and method for constructing and displaying web pages that make the web page loading process more interesting on the computer screen for the user. It would also be advantageous and desirable to provide a system and method for enabling and aiding the user to know and be indicated of the entire size of the web page being retrieved by the user. It would still further be advantageous and desirable to provide a web page animated construction and display that involves animated mover characters moving portions or pieces of the web page onto the web page viewing area as the web page is being constructed so that the user is provided with at least some further interest during the web page construction process. It would still also be advantageous and desirable to provide zoom in and out viewing capabilities of a large web page as the web page is retrieved so that the user has knowledge and a general indication of the relative size of the entire web page. It would still further be advantageous and desirable to provide a web browser that displays a web page that uses both the web page animated construction and display and zoom in and out viewing of the entire web page.